If you know anything about sending cold emails, you know how stressful it can get. Most people skim through their emails let alone open one from a stranger. The game becomes more complex when you start expecting replies from said emails. This here is what I call “The Cold Email Plight.” Listen closely as I cover more on this.

What most newbies don’t understand is the fact that everything is connected. To even get your email opened, everything needs to be well planned. Subject lines play a huge role in this. See my post for more details on this. There you’ll find out how to write effective subject lines and prepare you for the gems in this post.

After your emails are opened, you have to ensure it’s read and the recipient is inclined to reply. This ranges from using the right words to teasing value that you know would appeal to the recipient. But how do we know what’s valuable to them? Here’s where research helps.

Who hates a gift? Is this question even sensible? We all love gifts and that’s where we start. Unless you’re a joker sending cold emails to complete strangers, then you know you should know something about them. A warm email of sorts since you’ve studied your prospects is what I’m talking about.

I take my time when collecting people’s emails. I ensure to have a little research done so that I have all their details at hand. Check the image below which shows how my spreadsheet looks like during the research phase.

Compliments in a nutshell are sentences that the prospect would find relevant. What I do is research words or at times specific sentences the prospect says a lot since I find leads on YouTube. After that, I add that to my email. This ensures that each email even though sent en masse makes sense to the specific prospect who receives it.

Try this today and increase your cold email’s relevance to the prospect. This is how you’ll stand out from dozens who use emails to spam leads. Remember, if your email isn’t opened by many people you send them to, then it’ll be sent to spam folders. You should therefore ensure that you have a healthy open rate and an even better reply rate.

If you’ve learned anything from me so far, I like experimenting. I have no intention of showing you all templates but rather the ones that had an immense impact on my results.

Just a short summary: you start by testing out subject lines until you get an open rate closer to 100% as possible. This means that at least 8 out of 10 emails should be opened. If you achieve this, we can now start working on tuning the email to gain replies.

As you can see, the templates on the ends of the screenshot did very well. It was actually the same template that ended up giving me results while still testing out my subject lines. The last column represents the replies to the emails, central is open rates and the first column is the number of emails sent.

As we discussed, emailing is a connected art. If you’ve done all the prior steps properly, this last part is the icing on the cake. You already know the importance of offering a gift to your prospect and that’s what your cold email should entail. See below…

You want to be direct to the point as you’re addressing a stranger. Please don’t waste your prospect’s time. Its length should be 150 words max. The lesser words used the better. You should convey value using the shortest terms possible.

You start by offering a compliment which I’ll show how to fish out in another story. I however don’t recommend copying this template but rather using the principles outlined here such as offering value.

The average cold email reply rate is 8.5% so let these stats manage your expectations. It is essential to have patience but with the template I’ve provided, you increase your odds of getting above-average reply rates.

To send cold emails is as much an art as it is a science. From the subject line all down to the email itself, the prospect should be guided toward replying. Note that I said, “guided” not “told”. This stems from the principle that people like buying but not to be sold.

Remember, your next client could be an email away so you should ensure that each email is well written. To steal a saying from the great Samurai Musashi Miyamoto who said, “Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement.” This here is the secret to effective emailing.

Thank you, guys, for reading this. I wish you knew how much fun this is for me. I now intend to start posting every 5 days instead of every 10 days but that’s probably from next month.

Feel free to comment below on any observations or questions you may have. Also, feel free to leave suggestions on what you might like to read more about. Stay hydrated guys and I’ll see you on the next one.